Council culture: Software test leads to absurd local planning SNAFU
- Reference: 1631116865
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/09/08/swale_council_bungles_planning_applications/
- Source link:
According to [1]a statement from Swale Borough Council , staff from the Mid Kent Planning Support Team had been testing the software when "a junior officer with no knowledge of any of the applications" accidentally pressed the button on five randomly selected Swale documents, causing them to go live on the Swale website.
After learning what had happened, the council moved to remove the erroneous decisions from public display, but according to the statement: "Legal advice has subsequently confirmed they are legally binding and must be overturned before the correct decisions are made."
Legal advice has subsequently confirmed they are legally binding and must be overturned before the correct decisions are made
Publishing randomly generated planning decisions is obviously bad enough, but the problems got worse for Swale when it was discovered that the "junior officer" who made the mistake had also added their own comments to the notices in the manner of somebody "who believed they were working solely in a test environment and that the comments would never be published," as the council diplomatically described it.
So it was that despite scores of supportive messages from residents, the splendidly named Happy Pants Ranch animal sanctuary had its retrospective application for a change of land use
[2]PDF
controversially refused, on the grounds that "Your proposal is whack. No mate, proper whack," while an application to change the use of a building in Chaucer Road, Sittingbourne, from a butchers to a fast-food takeaway[3]PDF
was similarly denied with the warning: "Just don't. No."[4]
The blissfully unaware office junior continued their cheerful subversion of Kent's planning bureaucracy by approving an application to change the use of a barn in the village of Tunstall
[5]PDF
, but only on condition of the numbers 1 to 20 in ascending order. They also approved the partial demolition of the Wheatsheaf pub in Sittingbourne and the construction of a number of new flats on the site[6]PDF
, but only as long as the project is completed within three years and "Incy Wincy Spider."[7]
[8]
Finally, Mid Kent's anonymous planning hero granted permission for the demolition of the Old House at Home pub in Sheerness
[9]PDF
, but in doing so paused to ponder the enormous responsibility which had unexpectedly been heaped upon them, commenting: "Why am I doing this? Am I the chosen one?"For their part, Swale Borough Council's elected representatives were less than impressed by the work of their colleagues at the Mid Kent Planning Support Team and wasted no time in resolutely throwing them under the bus.
[10]
"These errors will have to be rectified but this will cause totally unnecessary concern to applicants," thundered Swale councillors Roger Truelove, Leader and Cabinet Member for Finance, and Mike Baldock, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Planning in a shared statement. "This is not the first serious problem following the transfer of our planning administration to Mid Kent shared services. We will wait for the outcome of a proper investigation and then consider our appropriate response as a council."
[11]After staring over the precipice once before, Kent County Council considers £500m in outsourcing again
[12]Flush with cash: UK utility Southern Water names 13 winners who'll drink up £50m application deal
[13]East London council blurts thousands of residents' email addresses in To field blunder
[14]Judge dismisses objections to spaceport in Scotland from billionaire who also wants to build spaceport in Scotland
The transfer mentioned refers to the formation of [15]Mid Kent Services in 2008, a partnership between Swale Borough Council, Maidstone Borough Council and Tunbridge Wells Borough Council intended to share resources, improve services and reduce costs across seven different departments, seemingly with unpredictable results.
The council now faces the task of undoing the damage wrought by the nameless and now possibly jobless IT underling.
"An investigation is underway to understand exactly what happened to ensure that lessons are learned and any necessary action in relation to the conduct of officers involved is taken," the council rumbled, ominously.
"The quickest legal way to deal with the issue is to use the judicial review process to have the decisions quashed through a judicial review. This is not uncommon and, if uncontested, could be complete in two to three months," the statement continued.
[16]
According to [17]a report on the KentOnline website , this process could cost the council £8,000 in taxpayer funds.
Given that the documents are considered legally binding, developers attempting to obtain permission for controversial projects may also be able to act on approved decisions before they are overturned, even if they were issued in error.
A notice published on the council web page for each of the affected planning decisions states that the council "will continue to liaise with [each applicant] as the matter progresses," but that judicial review to quash the decisions could take "two to three months."
"I am absolutely horrified that one of [the decisions] is the demolition of the Old House at Home in Sheerness High Street," Councillor Cameron Beart, the representative for Queenborough and Halfway on Swale council, told KentOnline . "I make no comment about the application in general, but if it has been approved without any consideration and without any conditions attached, it is a serious issue."
The Reg has contacted Swale Borough Council for comment and were told it was "still carrying out in internal investigation to get to the bottom of how this happened." ®
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[1] https://swale.gov.uk/news-and-your-council/news-and-campaigns/latest-news/planning-error
[2] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/09/08/happypantsranch.pdf
[3] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/09/08/justdont.pdf
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YTkyo8wLkH@sjgTQapqDQQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/09/08/1to20.pdf
[6] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/09/08/incywincy.pdf
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YTkyo8wLkH@sjgTQapqDQQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YTkyo8wLkH@sjgTQapqDQQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://regmedia.co.uk/2021/09/08/whyamidoingthis.pdf
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YTkyo8wLkH@sjgTQapqDQQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/26/kent_outsourcing/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2021/06/14/southern_water_names_13_winners/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/05/tower_hamlets_email_fail/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/23/sutherland_spaceport/
[15] https://old.maidstone.gov.uk/council/about-the-council/mid-kent-services/1
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/bootnotes&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YTkyo8wLkH@sjgTQapqDQQAAAQk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.kentonline.co.uk/sittingbourne/news/charity-told-proposal-is-whack-in-planning-blunder-253536/
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Approving development without being bribed?
I was going to post something about IT staff being cheaper to bribe, but of course in reality your typical IT custodian actually has a good measure of genuine integrity, unlike a number of Councillors that I allegedly may or may not have had the pleasure of working under.
Re: Approving development without being bribed?
Eww!
Tunbridge Wells?
Any angry letters yet?
Re: Tunbridge Wells?
Not from me.
Re: Tunbridge Wells?
I must admit, I often rather loathe your comments on many topics, but just this once, as I clicked through to the comments, I was really looking forward to seeing if you'd commented on it. Thank you for not disappointing. :)
this process could cost the council £8,000 in taxpayer funds.
So a single click can approve them, but to unapprove them
“.... without orders signed in triplicate, sent in, sent back, queried, lost, found, subjected to public inquiry, lost again, and finally buried in soft peat for three months and recycled as firelighters"
Re: this process could cost the council £8,000 in taxpayer funds.
Surely the unnamed person's actions were harmless? Well, mostly harmless.
Re: this process could cost the council £8,000 in taxpayer funds.
Surely all planning applications are kept on display in a locked filing cabinet in a disused toilet with a sign on the door saying beware of the tiger
Re: this process could cost the council £8,000 in taxpayer funds.
Not "Tiger", "Leopard"*.
FTFY
*HHGTTG, Series One, Fit the First.
"These errors will have to be rectified"
Which is nonsense. As the article points out, if they're acted on first there'll be no means to reverse them.
If the council has some means of imposing a hold whilst the JR takes place then there'll likely be civil action torecover the cost of the delay and £8k might only be the advance payment.
Not absolutely no means.
There was a big pub demolished by a developer illegally. The court made them rebuild exactly as it had been. Which would certainly have been horrendously expensive compared to any modern build. A sort real life "Batteries Not Included" without magic aliens.
Of course a favourite ploy is to secretly damage the roof, have inadequate security on the empty property and a few years later a Council will condemn the listed building.
Re: Not absolutely no means.
We hadn a similar situation. I used to live not far away from Late Bronze Age/Iron Age hill fort, later converted to a Normal motte and bailey castle. It had an Arts and Crafts period stone-built pub built inside it which was a nice enough building although it would almost certainly never have had planning permission. I'm not sure if it was listed with the rest of the site although I think it would have been worth it.
The owners got permission to extend the pub which required a certain amount of demolition. They demolished more than the permission allowed and were starting on a larger extension than allowed (which in turn would have broken extra ground within the scheduled monument). I think they would have been made to reinstate the excess demolition in the original materials. However they had, shall we say, failed to retain the (no doubt quite valuable stone on site. Oddly enough nobody knew where it had gone. So as they couldn't restore it they were ordered to demolish the remainder and grass over the site.
I believe they keep applying to rebuild. I'm not sure what the situation is now but occasionally there are murmurings of sympathy for them - frankly if it had been my decision they wouldn't have got the original extension position and I think the outcome is exactly right to set an example to anyone else who decides to mess with scheduled monuments.
The folly!
Always have an undo procedure, a disclaimer.
A ctrl-Z
Also why can ONE person "click". Shouldn't it need the clicks of two confirming witnesses. Sounds like the original paper method wasn't understood by the software implementers.
Councillor what? Camembert?
no. for real. Cameron Beart
Re: Councillor what? Camembert?
Sorry for the Cheesy joke
Re: Councillor what? Camembert?
It was Gouda nuff for me.
I think I know exactly how this happened as we have the same software.
Whilst there is a TEST and LIVE main system - well two, one back office, one public facing. there may be only one Document Management System (DMS) for various reasons, one simply the space required to duplicate would be huge - ours are measured in Terabytes now - whilst not sure that this would be the case here, it is possible.
So, the person was probably testing the decision notice process on the internal TEST system - all well and good - but the documents got published to the LIVE DMS - a bad thing.
We are ultra paranoid around this area and would never use a real application, even a real application on the test system - we always invent new ones - which is why my house has applications for nuclear power stations, incinerators etc on it.
I heart this article
A real "feel good" news story!
As always with the council, it'll cost £8000 of legal expenses to discuss and approve an IT technician to spend 5 minutes pressing the delete button.
This seems like a real legal loophole
If something is considered "legally binding" simply by virtue of being published without regard to actual approval being granted by responsible parties!
Exactly what is (or was, if they fix the processes) to stop someone with access to the system from making whatever changes they wanted? Perhaps in response to bribes, or perhaps to get revenge on an ex wife by changing the land use of her new address to be used for waste disposal and then having people show up dumping garbage there. Even if it was later fixed, a judge might say "can't arrest people for dumping garage because it was not illegal at the time they did it" leaving the poor ex wife responsible for cleanup costs.
Re: This seems like a real legal loophole
You can't dump garbage at a waste disposal site without permission from the landowner, who will probably charge you. So granting planning permission for your enemies property doesn't actually cause them any problems.
Though if you owned the adjoining land I guess you could grant yourself permission to farm pigs there, or something equally noxious.
Re: This seems like a real legal loophole
Or simple error. Stuff happens.
And in other fields such errors aren't binding. Future son-in-law found an air fryer on Amazon for £3.99.
His order was cancelled before delivery (Should, of course, have been £40)
Security
How is it that a system publishing legally biding council responses was not strictly account managed and protected with (at least) passwords, and, hopefully two factor authentication and a mandatory check for authorisation?
Everything that is published on an official web site that is legally binding should be validated by a second person before publication, or at the very least only be accessible to someone with the appropriate authority and responsibility.
Re: Security
sorry, nope, you just click on the relevant fields and the notice spews out
The Old House at Home was one of the pubs catalogued in the former website sheppeyscum.com, which rated all the pubs by how soon fights broke out each evening.
E S T O P P E L
Maybe the IT worker found the amulet?
May all be favourably gazed upon by the Ever-Evaluating Eye of Surr-Vey, Lord of Demarcation, He Who Measures and Assesses -- https://www.theonion.com/city-councilman-unearths-magical-zoning-amulet-1819567998
Approving development without being bribed?
I'm not surprised the councillors are upset, it sets a dangerous precedent.